{"product_id":"siena","title":"Siena","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn authoritative, richly illustrated history, and affectionate celebration, of Siena, one of the best-loved and most-visited cities in Italy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOccupying a hilltop site in the midst of a vast, undulating landscape, Siena is as much a magnet for contemporary tourism as Florence. However, its proud republican past presents an intriguing contrast with its Medici-dominated northern Tuscan rival, with which it tussled for local supremacy for much of the High Middle Ages. From the twelfth century, profiting from its advantageous position on a major pilgrim route, the Republic of Siena developed into a major European power and remained an important commercial, financial and artistic centre for four centuries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJane Stevenson charts the changing fortunes of a city that rose to an astonishingly productive cultural heyday in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, suffered a catastrophic late medieval decline in the aftermath of the Black Death, but transcended the loss of its wider political power to enjoy a prosperous civic afterlife. Siena today enjoys a cherished position as a uniquely well-preserved medieval city, crammed with world-class art and architecture, furnished with appealing and intriguing traditions, and set in a heavenly landscape.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MediaPlace","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57402197705086,"sku":"NW9781801101158","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1379\/1261\/files\/9781801101158.jpg?v=1778613466","url":"https:\/\/mediaplace.com\/en-usa\/products\/siena","provider":"MediaPlace","version":"1.0","type":"link"}